1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to methods and systems for providing back-up server functionality in an image processing system.
2. Discussion of Background
Over the past several years, there has been an increase in the number and types of document-related applications available over networks. These applications can include document management systems, such as those specializing in managing documents of various specific contents, for example medical, legal, financial, marketing, scientific, educational, etc. Other applications include various delivery systems, such as e-mail servers, facsimile servers, and/or regular mail delivery. Yet other applications include document processing systems, such as format conversion and optical character recognition. Further applications include document management systems used to store, organize, and manage various documents. These document management systems used to store, organize, and manage various documents may be referred to as “backend” applications.
Various systems for accessing these network applications from image processing devices (e.g., scanners, printers, copy machines, cameras) have been contemplated. One system associates a computer with each image processing device for managing the documents with the network applications. The computers communicate with the various network applications to enable the use of these applications by the user of the image processing devices. For example, the computers request and receive from the network applications information about the format and content of the data required by the applications to manage documents. The computers process this information and configure the image processing devices to provide the correct format and content.
Such systems, however, have numerous drawbacks, especially if considered within an environment of a relatively large office with significant numbers of image processing devices using different kinds of network document applications, which may change over time. Specifically, the requirement of having a computer for each image processing device increases cost and decreases flexibility. This requirement creates the burden of maintaining, securing and upgrading the computers. When new applications are integrated within the system, each computer and/or each image processing device should be updated and made compatible with the new network application. The task of updating each local computer and/or each image processing device creates a costly burden on the administrator of the system, and severely increases the traffic over the company's network. This increase in traffic can slow down the company's entire network.
In light of the above-mentioned shortcomings, other systems have been contemplated which include a computer, or server, connected to a plurality of image processing devices. These servers act as an agent, or gateway, allowing the image processing device to communicate and send processed image data to the network applications. For example, the servers may be capable of requesting and receiving information from the network applications about the format and content of the data required by the applications to manage documents. The server then formats information received from each of the plurality of image processing devices before forwarding this information onto the network applications.
However, a drawback of current systems is that there is no failure recovery or back-up procedure should the computer, or server, used in the system become unavailable. Therefore, when the computer or server is inaccessible from the image processing devices, the image processing devices are unable to utilize any of the services provided by the server.
In the case when only a single computer is responsible for handling the transactions between the image processing device and the network applications and that computer becomes unavailable, the image processing device becomes unable to send documents or files generated by the image processing device to any of the network applications for which the computer served as a conduit. Further, the image processing device may be unavailable until the computer is repaired or replaced which may take an extended period of time. Also, providing a backup computer for each image processing device could prove to be very cost prohibitive, since each image processing device would require a plurality of computers in order to compensate for a failure of the primary computer.
In the case when a single server is responsible for interfacing with a plurality of image processing devices, a failure of the server could cause many image processing devices to become unavailable. Such a failure could cause all the image processing devices in a department or a business, which are connected to the same server, to all become unavailable to communicate over the network. For example, if a single server is responsible for interfacing with an entire department's allocation of image processing devices, the failure of that server precludes the entire group of servers from accessing the services provided by the server.